Karl Petrikovics

Karl Petrikovics (born May 20, 1954 in Eggenburg , Lower Austria ) is the former CEO of Constantia Privatbank , Immofinanz AG and the associated Immoeast AG. He is considered to be one of the main people responsible in one of the largest white-collar crime cases in Austria involving the real estate group Immofinanz and the associated Constantia Privatbank. Petrikovics was sentenced to six years of unconditional imprisonment on April 12, 2013 for breach of trust. In addition to him, the former supervisory board member Helmut Schwager and the former head of accounting Christian Thornton were indicted, both were also sentenced to prison terms (the latter only conditionally). The judgments became final in October 2015. The fact that many small shareholders through the General Economic Service (AWD), today Swiss Life Select , are directly affected by the activities in the field of Immofinanz, resulted in great media interest.

Life

Karl Petrikovics graduated from the Bundesgymnasium Horn in 1972 , then studied law at the University of Vienna and at the same time business administration at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, and completed both courses in the standard study period at the end of the 1970s. This was followed by professional activities in an auditing company and as head of the finance department of a shoe retail company. In 1985 he started working for the subsidiary MAIL of Creditanstalt (CA), which offered "tax-optimizing" financial products in the real estate sector . At this time he developed a financially successful process for the first time in the Austrian real estate sector, which later became known as the builder model and led to the founding of CA Immobilien Anlagen AG in 1987 . For legal reasons, it was not possible at that time to transfer the German model of real estate funds to Austria, which is why he chose the structure of a stock corporation (AG). The management of CA Immobilien Anlagen AG was new at the time and, based on the German model of real estate funds, had an external management team.

Following offers from Constantia Privatbank, then owned by the industrialist Herbert Turnauer , Petrikovics moved to the Management Board of Constantia Privatbank on January 2, 1990 and was involved in the founding of "C & S Immobilien Anlagen AG", the predecessor company that emerged in 1994 Immofinanz. In the following years, he expanded Immofinanz to include a large number of other companies, a network of companies which apparently operated successfully until spring 2007. From 2004, Petrikovics, together with the co-defendants mentioned above, carried out stock option transactions approved by the supervisory board according to the lawsuit, which ran between Constantia Privatbank, Immofinanz AG, Immoeast AG and various subsidiaries, which led to the collapse of Immofinanz in 2008 -Bubble and on October 6th of the same year led to the resignation of Petrikovics from all functions. Petrikovics himself asserted in this context that they always acted for the benefit of the company .

In 2007 Karl Petrikovics was appointed by the then Minister of Economic Affairs, Martin Bartenstein, as a real estate expert to the supervisory board of the Federal Real Estate Company (BIG). Petrikovics was known for always being on the move with several cell phones and, although he was on the road a lot, he refused to drive with a chauffeur for work. When driving with a chauffeur he saw the danger that he would not be able to make phone calls undisturbed while driving and that he would have unwanted confidants.

Quotes

Karl Petrikovics is known for his sayings in public appearances.

“I have always been amazed that all apartment house sellers have foreign buyers at hand. Most of all, everyone had a Japanese. Only it must have been the same Japanese who left his options everywhere. "

- Karl Petrikovics : Online

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Rainer Himmelfreundpointer: Focus Immofinanz . Ibera, 2013, ISBN 978-3-85052-281-6 , pp. 25 u. following .
2. ↑ Immofinanz: prison sentences for ex-top managers. Retrieved May 12, 2013 . 
3. ↑ Petrikovics had to “clean the handles”. Archived from the original on April 13, 2013 ; Retrieved May 12, 2013 . 
4. ↑ Immofinanz trial ended with imprisonment. Retrieved May 12, 2013 . 
5. ↑ http://wirtschaftsblatt.at/home/nachrichten/oesterreich/1338885/print.do ( Memento from January 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
6. ↑ Charlemagne, completely uncontrolled. Retrieved May 12, 2013 . 
7. ↑ Immofinanz process - Karl Petrikovics: "A lot has become clear to me". Retrieved May 12, 2013 . 
8. ^ Bartenstein: Karl Petrikovics and Horst Pöchhacker new BIG supervisory boards. (No longer available online.) Formerly in the original ; Retrieved May 12, 2013 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
9. ↑ Head of the day: Karl Petrikovics. Retrieved May 12, 2013 . 

literature

• Rainer Himmelfreundpointer: Focus on Immofinanz . Ibera, 2013, ISBN 978-3-85052-281-6 .